The invention relates to an apparatus for unstacking, filling and stacking containers which are the same as each other, comprising a stacking station for receiving empty containers which are stacked in superposed relationship, a station for filling a respective container with articles which are supplied in succession or in batches, and a stacking station for receiving filled containers in superposed stacked relationship, comprising support means which are adapted to be actuated between positions for receiving the respective lowermost container of a stack and releasing same, and a lift means for lowering and raising the respective lowermost container of a stack from or into the stacking positions defined by the support means, and further comprising conveyor means for transferring a respective unstacked container from the empty container stacking station into the filling station and, after filling of said container, from the filling station into the other stacking station.
Apparatuses of that kind which are frequently referred to as container filling stations are already state of the art. Those apparatuses have an empty container stack in which the respective lowermost container can be moved into a filling station which is disposed beside the empty container stack and can there be filled with parts which are supplied for example by means of a conveyor belt, which however is of no further interest here. After the filling operation the container is conveyed along into a stacking station which is arranged beside the filling station and is there stacked with other filled containers in superposed relationship in a stack position which is elevated with respect to the conveyor path.
In that arrangement, transportation of the containers from the empty stack by way of the filling station to the full container stack is effected by means of a roller conveyor which so-to-speak forms the bottom or floor of the assembly. Furthermore the arrangement includes lift means for lifting containers into the elevated stacking position or lowering the respective lowermost container from the elevated stacking position onto the roller conveyor. In that way the lowermost container is conveyed away laterally out of the empty container stack into the filling station and a filled container is conveyed along to the full container station in which a filled container is then stacked in the elevated position by a lifting operation until support means come into operation.
Such apparatuses are widely used in plastic material-processing works in order to pick up the components coming from molds of production machines such as plastic material injection molding machines. In such works the production machines are generally disposed in side-by-side relationship in a row so that there is comparatively little space between the individual machines. For that reason container filling and stacking apparatuses generally cannot be set up between the individual machines but only at the ends thereof, in the passageways between adjacent rows of machines. It will be appreciated that even in that situation the previously known apparatuses in which the two stacking stations with a filling station disposed therebetween are arranged in a row take up so much space that problems in setting out the apparatuses occur at any event when operation is effected simultaneously at a plurality of adjacent machines and accordingly such an apparatus must be associated with each of the adjacent machines.